


Ice in Our Bones

by SparkleDragons



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Concussions, Frostbite, Hypothermia, They're all kind of there but i only included the people who have lines, Whump, cold-induced apathy towards death, graphic depictions of frost bite, graphic depictions of hypothermia, mention of minor amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleDragons/pseuds/SparkleDragons
Summary: On a frozen cycle of the century Lup gets separated and runs out of spell slots.





	Ice in Our Bones

**Author's Note:**

> I got bored so i wrote some whump. : ) Big thanks to Tanacetum for helping me edit!

Lup shivered violently against the icy, fallen tree trunk. This cycle had been a struggle to survive against neverending frost right from the start. The world’s sun had dimmed long before they got here, leaving little non-magical life behind. What remained was driven violent by hunger and isolation, all thick fur and sharp claws. They had a hard enough time finding non-transmuted food; fighting everything that came across their path only made things harder. Taako was confined to the ship as per Davenport’s orders. As the resident transmutation specialist, and only reason they had enough food right now, they couldn’t risk losing him to the harsh environment.

 

Lup, Magnus, and Barry had been sent on a recovery mission for the Light in one of the more mountainous areas. With how dim the world was it wasn’t hard to see the Light’s landing. After that, it was just a matter of triangulating exactly where it landed through all the snow and ice. They’d thought they’d had a good lead. They didn’t account for the ice golems.

 

The three creatures were each as tall as trees and suicidally aggressive, willing to charge right through a blast of fire to attack their target. It didn’t help that any time Lup blasted a hole in one with fire, it’d just suck up more of its surroundings to recover, slowly draining her of her available pool of magic. Magnus managed to take off the leg of one, sending it shattering against the mountainside. The victory was short lived as loud rumbling echoed through the mountains and the avalanche bore down on them. Lup’s foot got caught as she struggled to get away. She didn’t know how Barry and Magnus fared, only that she was quickly swept down the mountainside in a tumble of snow before knocking her head against a rock and passing out.

 

When she regained consciousness, thank the gods, she had to melt her way free from the snow, leaving her shivering and dripping wet. Her ankle got twisted somewhere along the way, but nothing was broken, luckily. Unluckily, she was out of spell slots, lost, probably concussed, and starting to freeze to death.

 

Her breath came out in puffs of white air and her numb fingers sparked with the effort of trying to cast  _ Create Bonfire  _ for possibly the twentieth time. Her shaking kept making her lose concentration and it was getting harder and harder to force her hands to make the necessary motions. Her vision swam from the effort and her head injury. It was so damn cold she couldn’t feel her toes anymore, even with the fire. Her ears burned with the cold. They’d stopped flicking against the flecks of snow a while ago. She wasn't sure how long.

 

It was weird, though. The longer she sat there the warmer her extremities started to feel. Maybe her magic was heating her internally? No. No she still couldn’t move them right, still couldn’t feel the insides of her shoes or gloves. Raising a shaking hand to touch her nose or ears left no sensation.   
  


She glanced bleerily around, unsure of what directed she’d even come from. The trees all looked the same, icy and baren and unwelcoming. She should keep moving. Moving kept the heart pumping and she didn’t have anyone else to share body heat with. Maybe she’d stumble across a cave or an overturned tree or something, anything to hide from the cold.

 

Her hand slipped off the log three times in her efforts to right herself and she hissed against the throbbing pain in her ankle. She had to take a moment to balance on shaky, weak legs before moving unsteadily forward, hands shoved in her armpits.

 

The cold left her uncoordinated and she kept tripping over the silliest things: a stray branch, a small rock, a patch of too-deep snow. Each time the snow cushioned her fall. Each time she lay there a little longer, breathing heavily, before picking herself up again.

 

A misplaced step sent her careening to the ground again. She couldn't move fast enough to catch her fall. It wasn’t so bad. The snow was soft and welcoming. And, hey, she’d stopped shivering. That was good. Maybe she could just lay here for a moment, get her bearings. She just needed a rest. She’d get her spell slots back and warm up a little. She wasn’t in a rush, after all. She couldn’t even remember where she was trying to go. Silly her, walking all that way for nothing. Some distant part of her urged her to get up and keep moving, but she waved it away. She was tired. She just needed a rest was all. Just a quick rest.

 

*****

 

“Barry!” Magnus called, waving him over. “I found something!"

 

“What? Where!?” Barry stumbled through the snow and low branches in a frantic dash, invigorated by Magnus’s excitement. It’d been too long. She was probably still buried somewhere. He’d at least wanted a body to bring back. But something about Magnus’s tone told him he’d found more than just a lost glove or hair sticking up from the snow.

 

“Look at that,” Magnus pointed at a gaping, ice-lined hole in the deep snow. It looked intentional. It looked like magic. “You think she melted her way out or something?”

 

“Yeah…” Barry muttered. “Yeah maybe. See if you can find footprints. It hasn’t snowed hard enough yet to cover them up.”

 

It wasn’t long before they found other patches of melted snow-turned-ice and a set of footprints too small and humanoid to be anything living around here they’d seen. Barry was off before Magnus could stop him, stumbling over his own feet. She was still alive. She had to be. As he ran he tried not to think about the indents in the snow where she’d fallen, about the nonsensical winding of her path, about how her feet seemed to drag through the snow. She was ok. She was going to be ok she was-- He almost tripped over the body.

 

She was lying face down in the snow, unmoving, limbs splayed around her. It looked like she’d lost her ear covers at some point and the edges had grown ugly and black with frostbite. He turned her over with a shaking hand to see her face in similar condition, cracked and covered with patches of red and black, speckled with white blisters. Her scarf was pulled down off her face, revealing cracked, blue lips and an icy nose. Her eyelids looked frozen shut and he had to stop himself from gagging. No. No, no, no, no. She got out of the avalanche. She should have been ok. She should have-

 

“ _ Barry _ ,” Magnus’s voice cut through his panic and he reached a hand up to rub at his eyes. He couldn’t afford to cry in this weather. “Barry, she’s breathing.”

 

Barry sucked in a breath and pulled himself away from her face to look at the horribly faint rise and fall of her chest. The motions were tiny, few and far between, but she was breathing. He let out a shaky cry of relief and tugged her close to his chest.

 

“We need to get back to the ship,” he commanded, not looking up from the snowy ground.

 

*****

 

Magnus messaged ahead to let the rest of the crew know and see if they could get the ship closer. It couldn’t land past the trees, but the avalanche had cleared a big enough patch for the trek back to be faster. It still felt like an eternity when carrying Lup’s frozen, dying body.

 

The two of them used their own scarves to cover Lup up as best they could before boarding the ship. Of course Taako was waiting frantically at the door.He didn’t deserve to see her like that. At least not until they knew what the full damage was. He threw a fit at not being able to see her until after Merle did and Lucretia had to lead him away to distract him.

 

The infirmary was heated just enough to warm her without sending her body into further shock.Merle had them lay her out on one of the cots before shooing Magnus out of the room. Barry refused to leave, insisting on being allowed to help on the merit that he’d already seen a lot of the damage.

 

Getting her gloves and socks off was hard. Parts of the fabric had frozen to her skin and had to be carefully thawed before they could assess the extent of the frostbite. Most of her clothes had to go, too icy and wet from getting out of the avalanche. They were replaced quickly with thick, dry blankets. It was awful to see. Her fingers and toes were in similar states to her ears, certain digits having turned completely black. Merle healed what he could; thankfully her face wasn’t too irreparably damaged, but there was a lot of dead skin that had to go. The tips and edges of her ears, some thin patches on her face and nose, a few toes and fingers. Barry didn’t stick around for that part.

 

He was sitting with Taako when Merle came in, about two hours after they’d brought her back.

 

“She’s wak’n up if you two want to see her,” he said, turning to meander his way back. They were on their feet in an instant, dashing past Merle in their rush.

 

Lup turned to look at them blearily as they stumbled in. Bandages patched her face. Everything else was under piles of blankets but Barry could imagine how wrapped up her ears, hands, and feet were.

 

“Hey boys,” she rasped, smiling weakly. Taako didn’t hesitate before running up and hugging her the best he could with her wrapped up like that. Barry slowed and took a seat next to the bed, letting the two of them have a moment. She laughed softly and wiggled minutely under the blankets. “Aww. Worried about me?”

 

“Shut up,” Taako mumbled into her chest.

 

Merle wandered in at his own pace and took a seat across the room. “Do you want to know the damages now or later?”

 

Lup groaned and closed her eyes. “Hit me, old man. How much did I lose?”

 

“Four toes, two fingers, lot of your ears, and some patches of skin I had to patch up afterwards. And based on that head wound you’re probably concussed. You’re gonna be here a while.”

 

Barry could hear Taako suck in a breath at the list. Sure she’d get it all back at the end of the year, but eight months was a long time to go missing so many digits.

 

Lup sighed. “Yeah. Yeah alright. Fuck.”

 

“You’re lucky you’re alive,” Merle said. “If Barry and Magnus had been a few minutes later you probably wouldn’t be.”

 

“Takes more than some snow to take me out,” Lup joked. “My whole thing is fire.” Taako gave her a severe look and she averted her gaze. The two of them had made their hatred of the cold known before. It was something you apparently learned to despise, living on the streets. Lup almost dying from it must be extra hard on them. “Yeah. Yeah alright…” Lup muttered, sinking into the blankets. “Sorry for worrying everyone.”

 

“Just glad you’re alright,” Barry mumbled, putting a hand on where her arm probably was. Barry and Taako spent a lot of the next week in the infirmary with Lup and at the end of the year, when they couldn’t find the Light, none of them found they much cared.  
  
  



End file.
